Dry weather combined with unwinter-like temperatures — roughly 5 degrees Celsius above normal levels for this time — may not pose immediate worries to the rabi season crops in the fields now. But the real concern is whether these conditions would persist, and the winter would end before it has even set in fully. Field reports suggest that the mustard crop — currently about 70-90 days old and at the reproductive (flowering and pod development) stage in most areas — is in good condition. “The positive thing is that there have been no white rust or stem rot attacks. These fungal diseases normally spread when you have low temperatures along with high humidity, especially from late-December to mid-January. What we are having, instead, is dry weather and above-average temperatures,” says Dhiraj Singh, who heads the Directorate of Rapeseed-Mustard Research at Bharatpur in Rajasthan. But such optimism of a bumper crop does not extend to wheat. Unlike mustard, which is harvested by February-March, the wheat in much of North India would start flowering only after mid-February. The real grain-filling or accumulation of starch matter in the kernels happens from around mid-March. If day temperatures spike to 35 degrees Celsius or more by then, there would be premature drying and ripening of the grain. The usual thumb rule is that every extra day on the field during the grain-filling stage confers an additional wheat yield of 45-50 kg per hectare. Any sudden rise in the mercury, forcing the crop to mature 7-10 days in advance, can translate into yield loss of roughly half a tonne per hectare. [related-post] Indu Sharma, director of Indian Institute of Wheat & Barley Research at Karnal in Haryana, feels there’s no problem with the wheat crop as of now. Farmers have planted about 2 million hectares less area this time, mainly because of the precarious soil moisture position from the lack of rain in Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra and Karnataka. “But where sowing has taken place, both germination and tillering (formation of shoots) has been generally fine, while the good sunshine and no frost or fog has only helped the crop,” she notes. Also, the fact that over 90 per cent of the country’s wheat area is irrigated, means lack of moisture isn’t as much of an issue. According to Pritam Singh Hanjra, a farmer from Urlana Khurd village in Madlauda tehsil of Haryana’s Panipat district, wheat normally requires about four irrigations. But this time, since there has been no rain at all, farmers will have to give two extra irrigations. If they were to use 10-horsepower diesel pumpsets, it would take about four hours to irrigate an acre, consuming five litres of fuel. But where groundwater has to be extracted using submersible pumps running on tractor-powered generators, diesel consumption can go up to 8-10 litres per acre. Sharma’s (and Hanjra’s) hope is the delayed onset of winter this time would translate into an extended winter, with low temperatures through February-March. And rain would, of course, be most welcome now.
